Accused of Witchcraft by Neighbors : Cleared of Murder, He Still Must Face Town’s Wrath

HOLLISTER, Calif. —  Raul Zamudio finally was turning his life around after a failed job and a divorce.

At 41, he found steady work as a counselor at a Santa Clara County Probation Department boys’ ranch, and he bought a new car and a house in a nice neighborhood here. But in May, all that came to an end when Hollister police arrested him in the Easter weekend rape and murder of Martha De La Rosa, a well-liked and hard-working 22-year-old college student.

The details of the murder were so gruesome and the emotions in this farm community so inflamed that when Zamudio appeared in a packed courtroom to plead innocent to murder charges, his lawyers advised the judge that they feared for his life. The mood here grew uglier after it was disclosed that police had discovered a strange altar in his home and concluded that Zamudio was a devil worshiper.

While he sat praying and reading the Bible in a high-security cell in San Benito County Jail, taunted by other inmates, Zamudio’s $120,000 home was set ablaze. The first fire was doused by firefighters, but a second arson left the two-story structure a shell.

Then, last Tuesday night, with Zamudio still in custody, there was a second murder, strikingly similar to the killing of De La Rosa. The savaged body of 16-year-old Lisa Koehler, the daughter of a CHP officer, was discovered on a roadside a few miles from town Wednesday morning.

Later the same day, San Benito County Dist. Atty. Harry J. Damkar, aware since June that semen tests proved that Zamudio had not raped De La Rosa, announced that Zamudio “has now been cleared.” Damkar added: “The killer is still out there.”

Hollister Police Chief Wayne Purves demurs. While there is no known physical evidence linking Zamudio to the De La Rosa murder, Purves says he remains convinced that Zamudio was somehow involved, perhaps as an accomplice. “Oh, yeah, he’s still a suspect,” the chief said in an interview. “Our theory hasn’t changed.”

On his second day of freedom, Zamudio sat in the Salinas office of his lawyers, Susan Rudoni and Thomas Worthington, and said that “cleared” or not, he knows he cannot safely return to Hollister, not even to sift through the ashes that were his belongings. He doubts he will ever get his job back.

“My life, it’s ruined,” Zamudio said. “I lost my home. I lost my savings. I lost my car. . . . I have the mark of Cain on me.”

It all came about, he said, because of a massive misunderstanding.

The misunderstanding stemmed from coincidence, his admitted interest in the De La Rosa murder, his “spiritual research” into various religions despite his own Christian faith--and the deep fear in a small community that, as far as people can recall, had never before been struck by such a bizarre and terrible crime.

Hollister is located an hour’s drive south of San Jose, about 10 miles off U.S. 101. Not long ago acres of orchards and tomato and garlic fields surrounded the town and shielded Hollister from the big cities to the north. But lately, it is becoming more of a bedroom community to San Jose and the Silicon Valley. Police and townsfolk say that as the population approaches 10,000, crime has become more commonplace. But nothing prepared them for what happened on April 2.

Martha De La Rosa worked at the downtown Quik Stop market evenings and weekends, helping foot the bill for the business classes she was taking at nearby Gavilan Community College. When she left work that Saturday night at 11, she was supposed to pick up her sister and drive home. Normally reliable and punctual, De La Rosa never showed up at the meeting spot. Her family called police.

Car Discovered

At 4 the next morning, Easter Sunday, a searching police car found De La Rosa’s car parked on a street a few blocks from the convenience store. On the front seat was a fabric red rose. At dawn, another police officer discovered the badly battered and nude body of the young woman on the football field of San Benito High School, where Martha had graduated four years earlier. Some of her clothes were found nearby. The county coroner concluded that Martha De La Rosa had been raped and strangled.

Police began their investigation by interviewing several young men who had known the victim. At least two submitted to polygraphs and were cleared. But then investigators began to hear about a man--Zamudio--who seemed to have taken an unusual interest in the crime.

Police reports and other documents on file in court here describe how acquaintances of Zamudio told police that he had spoken of his attraction to an unnamed woman who worked in a convenience store.

In an interview with The Times, Zamudio acknowledged that he had seen De La Rosa at the Quik Stop. But he noted that Hollister is a small town and he would stop there for gas. He denied telling anyone he was attracted to the woman.

But police reports describe interviews with people who thought Zamudio had what was described in police reports as a “creepy” interest in the crime. He discussed it with the youths he supervised at work. One person interviewed by investigators claimed that Zamudio said he had contacted De La Rosa’s spirit, which told him she “wanted to rest and have justice done.”

Discussed Theory

He told others of his own theory on the murderer--something about law enforcement officers being involved.

One witness gave police a description of a man she believed had given De La Rosa the fabric rose found in her car. Police concluded that Zamudio could have been the man she was talking about.

One night, Zamudio knocked on the door of Armida Valdez. He had never met the 68-year-old woman but heard she was a sort of town elder in nearby San Juan Bautista and might listen to his theories on the crime.

“He started telling me some crazy things about witchcraft,” Valdez told The Times.

She later related the conversation to police and said he told her among other things that he knew how the crime was committed and that the source of his knowledge was his dabbling in witchcraft, according to court records.

She said she told him to go to authorities, but he replied, “They are going to blame me.”

Zamudio told The Times that he talked about the crime because everyone else in town seemed to be talking about it, too. Moreover, he said police had asked the public for help in finding the killer and if he was asking a lot of questions, it was only because he wanted to assist. He also denied giving the fabric rose to De La Rosa, but declined, at the request of his lawyers, to discuss whether he had ever told anyone that he had contacted her spirit.

But Lt. Joseph Daughenbaugh, a 20-year police veteran who was heading the homicide investigation, decided that Zamudio had shown an unhealthy interest in the crime.

Shrine Found in Home

Based on this circumstantial evidence, Zamudio was arrested on May 12. When police searched his home, they found what they described as an altar--a shrine atop a circular table, scattered with raw corn kernels and rice grain, marked with drawings of “hexagrams” in red ink, a serpent-like staff lying nearby, according to court records. They also found books and magazines that dealt with the occult and unusual religions.

Daughenbaugh called in San Jose police investigator Ronald Martinelli, an expert on the occult, who concluded that the various symbols on the altar suggested that Zamudio had tried to conjure up spirits, or perhaps gain control over a person.

“I believe that Zamudio was using his occult beliefs to attract the victim, and when they failed to work, he resorted to violence,” Daughenbaugh said in an affidavit filed in San Benito County Justice Court.

After the arrest, Daughenbaugh also learned that in 1982, Zamudio had been forced to resign as a state Alcoholic Beverage Control investigator for allegedly trying to convince a teen-age girl who worked in a Salinas convenience store that he was an undercover narcotics officer.

Zamudio was charged with first-degree murder with special circumstances, which could carry the death penalty, and was jailed without bail. He pleaded innocent in court and on the advice of his attorneys declined to answer investigators’ questions.

In the 78 days after his arrest, police could prove only that Zamudio had shown an interest in the case. Prosecutor Damkar said that Zamudio’s statements were “unusual and therefore suspicious,” but that the suspect did not have “any unique knowledge of the crime.”

No Link to Murder

Moreover, what little physical evidence did exist pointed away from Zamudio. In June, tests on semen found at the crime scene showed that Zamudio could not have raped the woman. Another key piece of evidence, a single strand of hair found on the victim’s jacket, also was tested. It failed to match Zamudio. There was nothing to tie him to the crime scene, or even show he was in town on the night of the murder.

Last Tuesday Damkar told the De La Rosa family that he was going to release Zamudio. The next day, before the decision was announced and before Zamudio was set free, the nude and beaten body of Lisa Koehler was discovered.

Koehler, who would have been a junior at San Benito High School, was last seen at 10 p.m. Tuesday leaving her job at K & S Market, where she was a checker.

Zamudio said in an interview that far from being a believer in the occult, he is a born-again Christian. As he recounted his story, he punctuated the conversation with frequent repetitions of the phrase “praise the Lord.” He described the altar in his home as a private matter of “spiritual research” that was “misinterpreted by the profane world.”

While in jail, he spent most of his time fasting and praying, he said.

On the advice of his attorneys, he declined to discuss with a reporter his whereabouts on the night of Martha De La Rosa’s murder.

Despite the lack of evidence against Zamudio and the tribulations he has suffered since his arrest, there is little sympathy for him evident in Hollister. He is still reviled here. A woman who lives near Zamudio’s burned-out home said that on the night of his release, people drove by the gutted house and shouted, “Burn it.”

“People won’t let him back in--I’m not saying me. His reputation is shot. He’s through in this community,” said another neighbor, who like the first spoke on condition of anonymity.

The murder of Lisa Koehler has added to the fear and anger. A $5,000 reward has been offered for the capture of her killer.

“Up here,” said Police Chief Purves, “there’s a reluctance to think you could be next. . . . We suspect this is just a sign of the times. People will have to wake up and realize this is 1988.”